


split

by astratic



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Drug Use, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Mentions of Gun Violence, Physical Abuse, Traumatic Brain Injury, and is thinking abt things, hes got a bad migraine, i do not love that i have to tag 2d by his birth name lol, mentions of a brother/sister relationship with noodle, talking abt murdoc u know, this is kind of a tiny character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 00:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astratic/pseuds/astratic
Summary: The pain brings you full circle, as it often does: back to the beginning/to a messy crash landing out of a tree in the back yard.You wonder dimly if that's what brought you here, and then you circle again: to a void bookended by what felt to your mind like explosions/to the beginning of being a face and not a person.You think: it's a wonder my head never split open after all that. Then you think: maybe it has.How else are all your thoughts and memories leaking out like this, as if through a hole?





	split

You fall back.

The pain brings you full circle, as it often does: back to the beginning/to a messy crash landing out of a tree in the back yard 

You wonder dimly if that's what brought you here, and then you circle again: to a void bookended by what felt to your mind like explosions/to the beginning of being a face and not a person.

You think: it's a wonder my head never split open after all that. Then you think: maybe it has. 

How else are all your thoughts and memories leaking out like this, as if through a hole?

You get up.

You head to the toilet and throw up what little was on your stomach. You think: too many holes. You leave the lights off. It feels like a bullet has cracked through your skull—and you think it's a wonder that's never happened either—and then, in flashes: you're locked in a cold room below the sea, only a plexiglass window between you and the horrors of the deep/you're in the dark, damp, longing for the sun for the first time since your childhood/you're being led outside with a gun at your back and more pointing from the sky/you start to imagine eyes grown from the tips of the barrels, watching you—

You take more painkillers and get back in bed. You're not sure why you're thinking so much, but it's always easier when you don't. After that first fall—tree/ground/rocks/mum/hospital—thinking got a lot harder. That's when the migraines started—when the pills started. Music made it easier—thinking/not thinking/being—but then that was tainted too. You still love it: you love getting to do something you love and be recognized for it/you love the attention, people screaming your name because they love you. 

But it's never been just that: because there was always Murdoc to knock you back down/to kidnap you and trap you beneath the ocean/to remind you that nothing you made was yours.

Another bolt of pain rockets through your skull, and you groan. You think of your mum: she was always so gentle with you/she sat at your bedside and cared for you as much as she could/but you had medical bills and she had to work. So you were left: alone/in the dark/in pain. With the pills.

Your mum has arthritis now. She's sixty-four—it shocks you sometimes that you're nearly forty, because most of the time you don't feel like you've ever grown past that tree in the back yard. You moved your parents into a nicer house, though: one without stairs so they wouldn't hurt your mother's knees. 

You hum to yourself. You try not to wish for your mum. You don't talk to her much anymore—you don't want her to see what your life is like now: the drugs/the guns/the pain/the... Murdoc. Really, it always comes back to him.

You want to be angry at him—Russel says you should be/Russel wants to kick him out of the band—but most of the time you don't have it in you. Murdoc made you what (who?) you are. To still be scared of him after all these years—well, it feels pathetic. But then, haven't you always been? Wasn't that what got you to that music shop in the first place?

You hear Noodle in your mind then, tapping your forehead after each word for emphasis: _That's—not—healthy!_ She's always telling you things like that: respect yourself/treat yourself kindly/forgive yourself.

"Forgive yourself" is weird, you think, because you're not sure what you'd be forgiving yourself for—not that you don't feel guilty, but you have never quite figured out what it was that you did wrong. You think Noodle is wiser than you'll ever be.

You think, then: of Noodle at ten years old, coming to you for comfort when she had nightmares/trying to explain why she was upset, but you couldn't understand Japanese/feeling, in spite of that, that you and this strange little girl somehow understood each other in a way that went past words.

Sometimes you wish you could still take care of her like that, but it mostly goes the other way these days. Still, you think: I have done some things worth doing.

You turn over then and stare at the ceiling. It's dark, so you can't see anything. The painkillers are starting to work, you think, because it feels less like there's a bullet in your brain and more like someone's just sort of hitting your skull with a hammer now and then.

You wish you could stop thinking. You keep thinking. You think: Noodle shouldn't have had to grow up with just us idiots to look after her. You think: I should have done something. But what would you have done? She was an illegal immigrant/the product of an experiment/she was supposed to be dead. Anyway, Murdoc has always loved Noodle. He's never laid a hand on her. You think: someone should have done something for me.

You flinch at that thought. 

You take a deep breath, trying to relax. You want to close your eyes, but every time you do you are hurtling toward the ground again, about to split your head open. You sing softly into the darkness, trying to lull yourself to sleep. It takes a while.

You fall slowly this time/it doesn't hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> this was beta-read by blue--bunny on tumblr. thanks!


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